Strange Weather

In den Achtzigern wurde ich auf die beiden Eagles Glenn Frey und Don Henley aufmerksam, ohne jedoch zu wissen, dass diese beiden großartigen Musiker zu dieser legendären Formation aus den Siebzigern gehörten. Interessanter Weise gefiel mir die Musik beider Künstler sehr gut, wobei ich zum damaligen Zeitpunkt Glenn Frey favorisierte, vielleicht auch deshalb, weil einige Titel, wie zum Beispiel - The Heat Is On, Smuggler's Blues - und das absolut großartige - You Belong To The City - in den Kultserien der Achtziger - Bererly Hills Cop - und - Miami Vice - zu hören waren.

Nach drei Solo-Alben, von denen vor allem - The Allnighter - kommerziell sehr erfolgreich war, veröffentlichte Glenn Frey 1992 mit - Strange Weather - sein für mich bisher bestes Album. Neben den gewohnten Stärken, tolle und melodiöse Songs zu schreiben, präsentiert Glenn Frey auf diesem Album erstmals eine Art Konzept, denn einige der Songs sind mit kurzen instrumentalen Intermezzos oder Intros miteinander verbunden, so dass beim Hören eine musikalisch sehr abwechslungsreiche, ja fast schon wunderschöne Urlaubsreise beginnt, die man überhaupt nicht mehr unterbrechen möchte. Der Adler lässt also erstmals Landschaften mit seiner Musik entstehen, an deren schönen Bildern wir wundersam vorbeirauschen und die Zeit vergessen können. Gleichzeitig verbindet Glenn Frey auf diesem Album nicht nur den Sound der Achtziger kongenial mit den besonderen Momenten der Siebziger, sondern liefert uns auch neue Momente der Neunziger. So weist der Titel - I've Got Mine - aufgrund seines Saxophonintros sehr starke Parallelen zu seinem großen Hit - You Belong To The City - auf, und der Song - Love In The 21th Century - erinnert unweigerlich an - The Heat Is On - ohne diesen jedoch zu kopieren.

Daneben gibt es mit den beiden Liedern - Long Hot Summer - und - Strange Weather - zwei völlig neue und atmosphärisch ungewohnte Titel, die mir unglaublich gut gefallen, weil sie irgendwie eine Stimmung erzeugen, die ein sehr interessantes und kribbeliges Gefühl in mir erwecken. So ist - Strange Weather - mittlerweile ein Teil von mir, genauso, wie ich ein Teil von ihr bin, denn dieses Album ist für mich in der Tat wie ein ganz langer heißer Sommer in den verrückten Zeiten einer stolzen neuen Welt.

The year was 1980, and the "Eagles pressure cooker" had neared the point of blowing up several times throughout the production of their studio album "The Long Run," released the prior year after the three grueling years of production which had inspired its title. And now, Glenn Frey finally couldn't take it any longer. He wanted to release solo albums and produce records for and with other artists. He wanted to do things outside the music business. He wanted the fun back in his life. And so one day, shortly after the benefit concert fort California Senator Alan Cranston (D) which would be the band's last live appearance, he called up Don Henley, the other half of the songwriting duo at the core at the Eagles, and told his stunned band mate exactly this. While many other things doubtlessly also contributed to the band's breakup, this phone call played a central role in it.

Freed from the "pressure cooker," Frey in 1982 released an album tellingly entitled "No Fun Aloud," the overall mood of which was set by the light, funky, brass-inflected type of R&B which would be characteristic of his following albums as well. (Frey is from Detroit and counts Bob Seger as one of his earliest musical influences.) Songs such as "Partytown" and "I've Been Born Again" reflect feelings he may very well not have known for a while. Even the satirical "All Those Lies" is a rather tongue-in-cheek take on people who get tangled up in the web of their own lies from time to time, rather than the acid social commentary which Don Henley would churn out in his own first solo release, "I Can't Stand Still," that very same year. And while Frey did sprinkle in that occasionally more pointed note in his follow-up albums (e.g., "Better in the U.S.A." on 1984's "Allnighter," "Smuggler's Blues," written for the "Miami Vice" TV series, and the title track of 1988's "Soul Searchin'"), he mostly stayed true to the musical style coined on his first solo album.

Then came 1991's "Strange Weather." By that time, the temporary ice age between the Eagles' former members was nearing its end, although they (and Frey and Henley in particular) were still resisting big-bucks offers to reunite. But whether or not it is due at least in part to that patching up process, the tone of Frey's last studio album before the Eagles' improbable 1994 reunion is different from his prior releases. While there is still plenty of funk, brass and R&B in songs such as "Delicious" and the only half-joking "Love in the 21st Century," a reflective mode dominates the arrangements of the title track, the inspiring "River of Dreams" (dedicated to Frey's wife Cindy) and the two short instrumentals "Silent Spring" (named for scientist-conservationist Rachel Carson's seminal book on the dangers of pesticides and dedicated to its author) and "Agua Tranquillo" (dedicated to celebrated Chicano writer Sandra Cisneros). The album also contains Glenn Frey's contribution to the "Thelma and Louise" soundtrack, "Part of Me, Part of You," and interpretations of works by Anne Rice and Stephen King, both of which excellently convey the mood set by the two authors' books: While "A Walk in the Park" instantly transposes you into Anne Rice's nightly New Orleans (celebrating the mysterious beauty of the night, however; no word of the vampire's anguish expressed in Sting's "Moon Over Bourbon Street"), in listening to "Brave New World" you cannot help but feel placed right in the middle of a scene from Stephen King's "The Stand" which, as the liner notes explain, Frey was reading when he wrote the song.

Perhaps most importantly, Frey no longer holds back with his opinions about politics and society: "I've Got Mine" and "Big Life" deplore modern society's self-centeredness and materialism, and the words and music to "He Took Advantage" (subtitled: "Blues for Ronald Reagan") could have come right off Don Henley's "End of the Innocence." To an edgy blues rhythm laced with grating guitar riffs, Frey intones his farewell to an obviously not missed president: "He looked you right in the eyes and told those beautiful lies ... He used us and betrayed us and made it seem alright; he turned his back on everyone, I don't know how he sleeps at night. And now he's walking away; he doesn't care what we say. We weren't too hard to deceive; we wanted so to believe. He was too good to be true; he took advantage of you."

Musically and in terms of production, the album benefits from Frey's cooperation with trusted friends Jack Tempchin, Jay Oliver and Eliot Scheiner, all masters in their respective fields; and while it lacks the "all star" cast for which Don Henley's solo releases soon became known -- in fact, almost all instruments are played by Frey and Oliver -- names such as Ben Tench (organ in "River of Dreams"), Al Garth (sax solo in "River of Dreams"), and Valerie Carter (background vocals) do stand out. All in all, "Strange Weather" is a wonderfully diverse platform for Glenn Frey's musical range, and for the range of his bright tenor which to this day (as last heard in yesterday's Concert for Artists' Rights in L.A.) has lost nothing of its force and still sounds not a day older than when Frey was in his 20s. This album may not be groundbreaking -- which it has never pretended to be in the first place anyway -- but it would have deserved much more attention than it has received since its release 15 years ago.